Monday’s theatrical spectacle at the Senate echoed a tense showdown on 12 March 2025, when former President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the Philippine National Police (PNP) under Gen. Nicolas Torre III and handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

This time, it was the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) under Melvin Matibag, not the police, moving with the same urgency in what appeared to be an attempt to bundle Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa off to The Hague.

Legal luminaries, however, opined that the attempt to apprehend Dela Rosa suffered from bigger infirmities than Duterte’s case.

The warrant for Duterte was transmitted from the ICC to the Interpol and the Interpol Manila office forwarded it to the Philippine Center on Transnational Crime under the Office of the President at around 3 a.m. on 11 March 2025.

President Bongbong Marcos then authorized the arrest and Duterte was flown to The Hague the same day.

Nothing of the sort happened to Dela Rosa. It was coup plotter Antonio Trillanes IV who flashed the ICC warrant on the senator, which even the Department of the Interior and Local Government said was not actionable.

Former University of the East College of Law dean Amado Valdez said Trillanes could not serve a warrant. “He is not a person in authority or agent of the law,” he explained.

In the rush to haul in Dela Rosa, several breaches can be challenged. Valdez held that the NBI “needed Senate authorization to execute its mandate to serve the warrant.”

The mauling of a staff member of the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms could be one of the biggest slip-ups. “The Senate security is an extension of the chamber’s authority, which must be respected,” he admonished the NBI.

Trillanes has significant legal exposure because of his bravado. His biggest problem, according to a law expert, is that he is a private citizen with no law enforcement authority who inserted himself into what should have been an official government operation.

The impropriety of his role — obtaining a classified warrant, disclosing it publicly, entering the Senate with NBI agents and participating in the physical attempt to detain a sitting senator — gives the Senate multiple legal hooks to reel him in, “even if the underlying ICC warrant against Dela Rosa is ultimately valid.”

Another violation was trespassing. Bringing NBI agents into the premises to execute an arrest, without the Senate’s authorization, constitutes a form of trespass against a government institution, particularly given that the Senate placed the building under lockdown because of the intrusion.

However, before he was ousted by Alan Peter Cayetano as Senate president, Vicente Sotto III had reportedly allowed the NBI agents to enter the Senate premises, a point Cayetano himself later acknowledged.

Had the NBI been able to arrest Dela Rosa, who provided the 13th vote out of the 24 senators to prop up Cayetano’s coup, Sotto could have kept the top Senate post.

A court veteran said Trillanes may also face liability under Article 177 of the Revised Penal Code, which penalizes usurpation of authority or official functions, specifically knowingly misrepresenting oneself as a public officer or performing acts reserved for a public officer.

By accompanying the NBI agents and purporting to serve a warrant, Trillanes effectively assumed the role of a process server or enforcement officer. The problem is he has zero law enforcement authority. That puts him squarely in usurpation territory.

In short, Trillanes’ and the NBI’s goose is cooked.